Friday, September 05, 2008

I have to pass this on from Nature Moms blog. Any parents out there with tagless kids' clothes take notice:

these labels may be made with “PVC blended into a Phthalate” or ink with “small levels of formaldehyde”. It was even stated that “residual phthalate from not fully fused ink is what is most likely causing the reaction.” And the reactions are horrible. Read this description of a reaction to Carter’s tagless clothes and look at these pictures.

This reminds me of my visit to my local Pharmaprix (that's the brand Shopper's Drug Mart goes by in La Belle Province) a few months ago in search of a good teething ring for my baby boy. It was in the middle of one of those toy recalls and I was specifically hoping to find something not made in China, since it would be in and out of his little mouth constantly, and I had lost confidence in any product from China living up to its printed-in-Canada assurances of safety. Anyway, of eight products to choose from, not one was manufactured anywhere but China.

Parenting in the modern age, eh? In the end it was decided to go with non-plastic alternatives.

NOTE: my own two sons have shown zero reaction to tagless clothes themselves, despite wearing them continually. What I linked to here is admittedly an unconfirmed report, but a quick check on snopes.com found no urban legends reported on tagless clothes burns. That and the severity of the reaction shown in those pictures led me to want to pass it on just in case.